NV Energy CEO Yackira to Get $24 Million Next Year

NV Energy Inc. (NVE) Chief Executive
Officer Michael Yackira will receive about $24 million in
compensation after retiring from the Nevada utility purchased
this week by MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co.

Yackira, 62, will get $15.1 million for his stock and
options, about $6 million in cash and about $2.9 million in
pension and other benefits, according to an August 2012 “golden
parachute” disclosure by Las Vegas-based NV Energy. Much of
Yackira’s stock was already owned or earned through his tenure,
said Rob Stillwell, a spokesman for NV Energy.

MidAmerican, owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway
Inc. (BRK/A), announced yesterday that Paul Caudill, 59, was named
president of NV Energy. Caudill is a former president of
MidAmerican Solar. Yackira plans to retire in June.

“I’m going to do whatever the company wants me to do,”
Caudill said today in a telephone interview, when asked whether
he might be named CEO. “That, frankly, isn’t my decision.”

Caudill’s “leadership experience means he’s the right
choice to help us ensure continued safe, reliable energy for
Nevada customers, while helping us explore and invest in greater
renewable energy-generation options,” Yackira said in the
statement.

Yackira joined NV Energy in 2003 and had been chief
financial officer, chief operating officer and president before
being named CEO in 2007. He was named chairman of the Edison
Electric Institute, a Washington-based trade group, in June.

Berkshire’s Spending

MidAmerican agreed in May to buy NV Energy for about $5.6
billion in cash to expand in Nevada. Buffett, Berkshire’s
chairman and CEO, has boosted investments in capital-intensive
businesses as he seeks to allocate funds at his Omaha, Nebraska-based company.

MidAmerican issued $1 billion of common equity to its
existing shareholders and $2.59 billion of junior subordinated
debt to Berkshire subsidiaries to help fund the deal, according
to a filing from the Des Moines, Iowa-based energy company. It
also used proceeds from senior debt issued in November.

Berkshire owned 89.8 percent of MidAmerican as of Jan. 31,
according to a regulatory filing, with Berkshire director Walter
Scott and his family owning most of the rest.